Between the Two of Us
by Ljota Lokidottir
Summary: When Sirius learns that Harry has been cleared of all charges and will be going back to Hogwarts for his fifth year, he's happy for his godson. Sort of. It takes an honest conversation with a certain werewolf to come to terms with what he's feeling. Some Wolfstar, but this isn't an especially romantic scene. One-shot.


Remus Lupin trooped wearily up the steps to the front door of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. He'd just returned from a harrowing couple of days undercover in a village in Devonshire, where the Death Eaters had been quietly recruiting locals to their cause. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that the full moon was approaching, and Remus was weak and shaky, his mind and reflexes dulled. The Death Eaters, also undercover, had begun to suspect that there was a spy in the village, and had questioned all of the villagers. The questioning started, as always, with bribes and sweet-talking, but if the villagers weren't cooperative, it quickly escalated into torture. Remus was glad most of the villagers had been somewhat weak-willed, because he wasn't sure how long he could have prevented himself from barging in and trying to rescue the ones who got tortured. On the other hand, this meant that the Death Eaters soon had a very accurate description of him, and he'd been hard-pressed, the past day or two, to evade their searches. He'd spent last night shivering in a Muggle's root cellar, hidden among crates of sweet potatoes and last year's apples, and was very much looking forward to a hot meal and a proper bed.

It was lunchtime when Remus got back to headquarters, and the gloomy old dining room was full of people. The four youngest Weasley children were there, of course, as well as Hermione, Molly, Hestia, and a foul-smelling heap of rags that Remus recognized as Mundungus. Kreacher was lurking in the doorway, sneering and muttering as usual, and Harry sat slightly apart from the others, fiddling with the ends of his sleeves as he stared at the tabletop. Remus sat down next to him.

"What's up, Harry?" he asked quietly. Harry looked slightly worried, and also slightly ashamed. Hermione glanced over at them, pressed her lips together, then resumed talking to Ginny about regional variations of the Bat-Bogey Hex.

Harry looked up at Remus, who was hit with a wave of nostalgia as he always was when he saw Harry's face. "Sirius," he muttered. "He's been hiding out in his mum's room all day with Buckbeak. Says he's not hungry, but he wasn't down to dinner last night either, and I doubt he's keen to live off the rats he feeds Buckbeak."

Remus sighed and pressed his fingers to his temples. He would have really liked to have the afternoon off, but it looked like he was up for a shift at the Tending to Sirius Black's Mood Swings post. "Damn that mutt. Don't worry, Harry, I'll bring him up some lunch and give him a talking-to," said Remus, his mouth watering as Molly started dishing up lunch. He filled two bowls with the spiced chicken stew she was serving, then headed upstairs with an apologetic wave to the rest of the clan.

When he reached the bedroom that had once belonged to Walburga Black, he stood outside the door for a moment, listening. He could hear the low rumble of Sirius's voice, talking quietly. It sounded as though he were having a casual (though one-sided) conversation with Buckbeak. After a few moments, though, he fell silent.

"Come on in, Moony," he said aloud. "I know it's you out there, and frankly it's a little disconcerting to have you just standing there."

Remus let himself into the room. Like the rest of the house, Sirius's mother's room was dark, forbidding, and grimy after a decade of neglect. The ornate Gothic-style bed that had once dominated the center of the room was now shoved to one side, its curtains drawn, and a large grey hippogriff lay sprawled across the floor. Sirius was sitting on the floor next to Buckbeak, a bag of dead rats next to him. He was pale from months spent indoors, and there were dark circles under his eyes that told Remus he hadn't been sleeping well. He stroked Buckbeak absently with one hand as he watched Remus enter.

"I already told Harry I'm not hungry," he said grumpily when he saw the bowls Remus was carrying.

"He says you haven't eaten all day, and you missed dinner yesterday too," replied Remus, unperturbed by the scowl Sirius wore. "You need to eat."

Sirius gave a sullen shrug, not meeting Remus's eyes, but said nothing. With a sigh, Remus set one of the bowls down next to him, then went to sit on the other side of Buckbeak, digging gratefully into his own stew.

"How did you know it was me?" he asked lightly after a few bites. "Have you spent so much time as a dog that your smell has gotten better even when you're in human form?"

Sirius looked at him grudgingly. "No," he admitted. "I know your footsteps. You have a very particular way of climbing stairs. Besides," he added, "the only other person who ever bothers me up here is Harry, and I just got done telling him to shove off."

"You shouldn't talk to Harry like that," Remus said mildly. "I know you're not entirely happy he'll be going back to Hogwarts—"

"Of course I'm happy!" Sirius interrupted, giving Remus an angry look. "I'm delighted he was acquitted, of course I am! He's my _godson_ , for Merlin's sake."

Remus shrugged. "I know you're happy for him," he agreed, "or at least you're trying to be. It's good of you, you know. But I also know you're a little disappointed that he won't be living here. Don't bother denying it," he added, forestalling Sirius's objections. "I know you too well, Padfoot."

Sirius sighed, running his hands through Buckbeak's thick neck feathers. "I suppose you do," he conceded.

Remus pushed a lump of eggplant around his bowl with the spoon. "I feel it too, you know," he said after a moment. "When I look at Harry. I know I was never as close to James as you were, but even so, every so often Harry looks up with a certain expression or holds his arms a certain way, and for a split second it's like—"

"Like having James back," Sirius finished quietly. He met Remus's eyes properly for the first time. "I look at him and for a split second I really think it's James, that he's alive, that the last fourteen years have all been some big prank we all played." He picked up his bowl of stew and stared at it glumly. "Then I come to my senses, and I remember that James and Lily are dead, and in a way it's like I'm losing them all over again." There was a pause as both men chewed thoughtfully on their stew. "I keep going back to the night they died. It was horrible. James was more of a brother to me than Regulus ever was, and losing him damn near destroyed me." Sirius's shoulders convulsed weirdly at the memory. "I'd turned my back on my family, of course, and you and I had drifted apart so much I was willing to believe you were selling us out to Voldemort for the promise of werewolf rights. James and Lily and Peter were all I had left, then in one night two of them died and the other revealed himself as a traitor. That did a real number on me."

Remus was watching Sirius quietly, intently; he'd never heard Sirius talk about the night the Potters died, except in passing when they had explained things to Harry over a year before.

"Of course, then I knew _you_ weren't the traitor—which I should have known all along, I knew you better than that—but that didn't help much because you were far away doing something for the Order. That night, when I went to James and Lily's house—" Sirius broke off with a shudder. "I always knew the Black family madness was never too far from the surface, but I'd never felt like that before, and I hope I never do again. I was—unhinged, I guess. You've heard what people say about me? How I cornered Wormtail in the middle of a crowded street, and afterward, when they dragged me away, all I could do was laugh?" He waved a hand. "True, the lot of it. I couldn't think straight. The only thing that mattered was that James was dead and it was Peter's fault, and when Wormtail pulled his little stunt with the finger it just seemed ridiculous. That it should end like that. Him, a rat, scuttling off into the sewers while everyone assumed he was dead, and me, taken to Azkaban for the murders he committed."

Sirius had resumed stroking Buckbeak's neck while he talked, and Remus leaned forward to place his hand on top of Sirius's larger one. Sirius twitched, but then turned his hand over to grasp Remus's.

"It all gets a bit blurry after that. They locked me up, of course, and I spent twelve years with no completely sane thought in my head. My innocence was the only thing I had to hold onto…." He paused, remembering. "Then I saw that picture of Wormtail in the _Prophet_ , and my need to hunt him down came back in full force. You know I've always been excessively vengeful, it's part of the Black legacy. So I broke out, and you know the rest. It's been a whirlwind, the last couple of years, and not the good kind. There are only two things I'm really grateful for about it—knowing Harry, and having you around."

Remus smiled slightly and squeezed Sirius's hand, but his expression remained sad and thoughtful. He was realizing what he'd never thought of before. "All those years in Azkaban," he murmured. "You never had time to come to terms with James's death."

Sirius looked at him and laughed bitterly. "I guess you're right. I haven't exactly grown up very much in the past fourteen years, have I? In a lot of ways I still feel twenty-two."

"Not so much older than Harry," Remus said. "So that's why—it's like he's old enough to be your friend, the way James was." He fiddled with his spoon in his now-empty bowl. "It's terribly unfair to him, you know."

"I know." Sirius withdrew his hand from Remus's and sat back against the wall, sighing. "I wish I could be what he needs me to be. But I'm not a father, Remus; I was never cut out to be a father, and even if I was, I haven't properly got past being twenty-two. I feel much too young to have a teenager look at me as a father figure."

Remus scratched at Buckbeak's neck, and the hippogriff leaned lazily into his touch. "I know what you mean," he said. "I wasn't in prison for twelve years, of course, but that time—it wasn't exactly kittens and roses for me, either. After James died, I had no way of knowing that you weren't the traitor. I took the Ministry's story at face value. I believed you'd killed Wormtail and sold the Potters to Voldemort. And what's worse," he added, very quietly, "I thought you'd done it for me."

"For—" Sirius looked shocked for a moment, then the meaning of Remus's words sank in and he dropped his face into his hands. "Merlin, Moony, I never realized—"

Remus shrugged. "It's like you said. Voldemort was making all those promises of equal rights for werewolves. I'd promised myself never to be taken in by it, but I also knew I was your biggest weakness. That's why I broke up with you when we left school, if you remember."

"I remember," said Sirius dully. "But I would never have—Remus, you know I would have done—would still do—almost anything for you, but I would never—"

"I know, I know." Remus waved a hand. "Hindsight's a hell of a beast, Padfoot. The point is, I had convinced myself that all those deaths were my fault, which did wonders for my mental health, as you can imagine. Add to that the fact that I was living on a meager inheritance from my parents, which ran out quickly enough, and couldn't find work except for occasional menial labor, paid a pittance under the table. It wasn't a good time for me. But if I had anything, I had plenty of time to think, and eventually I learned to live with the fact that James and Lily were dead. The wound isn't so fresh anymore."

"Yeah."

Both men fell silent while Sirius finished his stew. Buckbeak pawed at the floor with his massive hooves and looked yearningly at the bag of rats, which was just out of reach. Sirius caved and fed him a particularly gruesome rat, which the hippogriff attacked with considerable relish.

Sirius watched Buckbeak eat, then said, "I guess I owe Harry an apology."

"I'd say so," agreed Remus, and picked up his bowl.

They stood up, each giving Buckbeak a farewell pat. They started to cross the room, but before they reached the door, Sirius touched Remus's arm to stop him. He hesitated for a moment, then, without saying anything, stepped forward and wrapped Remus in his arms, pressing his cheek against the side of the werewolf's head. Remus's face nestled familiarly into the curve where Sirius's neck met his shoulder, and his arms curled around Sirius's waist with an iron strength they hadn't possessed back in the day. They stood that way for a few moments, then Sirius pulled back slightly to look Remus in the face.

"I know we said we wouldn't try to restart our relationship until after the war," he said, his voice a bit gruff, "but I'd really like to kiss you right now if that's all right."

"Sirius, I don't think—"

"Just the once," Sirius said. "I'm not trying to start anything, I promise."

Remus's face softened into a smile. "Go on, then," he allowed, and Sirius's expression broke into a grin.

It wasn't a long kiss—not much more than a lingering peck on the lips, really—but it made Remus's head swim all the same. Partly this was because it had been a very long time since he had kissed anyone, and partly it was because kissing Sirius was a profoundly bittersweet thing to do. It reminded him of simpler times, when they had been convinced that their love for each other would carry them through any obstacles, and when they could go for weeks without worrying about anything more important than their N.E.W.T.s or their plans for the next full moon. And it reminded him, too, of all that they had lost: their friends, their futures, their unwavering trust that things would work out in the end.

The two of them went out onto the landing together. "I'll go talk to Harry," Sirius said, glancing down the stairs. Remus nodded.

"I'm going to have a nap. It's been a long couple of days."

Sirius looked at him with quick concern and swore under his breath. "It's the full moon tomorrow, I forgot, I'm sorry—" He wore an expression of guilt that Remus had seen there countless times before.

Remus waved a hand. "Don't worry about it."

"No, Remus, I should've realized—the last thing you need is all my troubles on top of everything—"

"I said _don't worry about it_." Remus swatted away Sirius's hand, which had risen as if to rest on his shoulder. "I'm fine, I just need some sleep. Now go talk to your godson."

A smile flitted over Sirius's features as he studied his hands, then looked up at Remus. "You know," he said, "between the two of us, I reckon we might make a decent godfather."


End file.
